The EU referendum - a unique opportunity

In order to arrive at the impossible conclusion that the referendum on Malta`s accession to the European Union is a useless exercise, Desmond Zammit Marmarà (Talking Point, April 30) had to make some convenient short cuts. For example, his reference to the present government having a mandate to negotiate Malta`s EU membership omits the fact that this mandate includes the obligation to subject the issue to a referendum once these negotiations are concluded.

Having omitted this very important point, he then goes on to glibly ask what sense is there in holding a referendum on EU membership and exhorts to all and sundry that the outcome of the next election should decide this issue!

For any person with a modicum of common sense, it is obvious that there are Maltese citizens who normally vote for the PN but who do not agree with Malta becoming an EU member. And that there are also a number of Maltese citizens who normally vote Labour or who are inclined to vote the PN out of power in the present circumstances but who, at the same time, are adamantly in favour of Malta becoming an EU member.

According to Mr Zammit Marmarà, however, the only choice that the citizens of Malta should be allowed to have is between `Membership and a PN government or partnership and an MLP government.` Why, may I ask? The answer seems to be simple: because Alfred Sant (and, of course, Desmond Zammit Marmarà) says so! This is, patently, unacceptable.

Alfred Sant`s (and, hence, the MLP`s) stance that the referendum only binds the government that holds it and not the government that is elected after it is held is contradictory as the referendum is part of an electoral mandate - the mandate that the PN was given in the 1998 election.

In the EU referendum, the people of Malta will have a unique opportunity to decide directly - rather than through the decisions of the party in government - on an issue that impacts on their and their children`s long-term future.

But the MLP is hell-bent on denying them this opportunity. Indeed, even from the Opposition, the MLP wants to deny the democratic rights of all those Maltese citizens who want to express their opinion on Malta`s EU membership as distinct from their opinion on which party they want to be in power for the next five-year administration after the present one`s term of office is over.

The only reason I can fathom for this MLP stance is that they know that the majority of the people of Malta are in favour of our becoming EU members. This must be why the MLP wants at all costs to render the EU referendum into a meaningless exercise.

Obviously aware of the MLP`s unjustified stance on the EU referendum issue, former Labour media supremo, Alfred Mifsud, writing in another English daily, recently suggested that the PN and the MLP should agree on holding a referendum on the EU issue and then respecting its outcome but only if it is held after the next election!

Of course, there is no logic, either, in the idea that a referendum result should only be respected if it is held after the next election rather than before. But this suggestion is a tacit acknowledgement of the weakness of the MLP`s present stance on the EU referendum.

Alas for Alfred Mifsud, his leader, Alfred Sant (and, of course, Desmond Zammit Marmarà), will not buy that one either. For them the EU referendum should be rendered meaningless - obviously because otherwise the MLP would not be able to ignore the people`s wishes and do whatever tickles its fancy when it is in government.